Browsed byTag: crossroads poetry

A reader contacted me this morning to say that after, having enjoyed Fleeting Ink, they were interested in reading Crossroads Poetry and Broken Body Fragile Heart, but that they couldn’t really cope with reading about self harm and therefore weren’t sure whether they’d be able to enjoy the collections. I can totally sympathise with this: at the time that I wrote these poems, reading about self harm probably would have screwed me over too, and the last thing I want…

Well, I didn’t think I’d be posting this early in the day, but I somehow woke up about two and a half hours before I’d planned, and have dragged myself out of bed to blog and take care of a few things before we leave for Cambridge later. You’re the ones who win in this scenario — I’m exhausted, but at least a blog post gets written! Today’s poem is a very personal one, and one that very closely links…

Whoops! Bit of a late one, this — I was singing in our church’s carol service this evening, and while I’d hoped to get the blog post done this afternoon, I slept instead. Because naps. However, since I know a lot of my readers are in other timezones, I guess it doesn’t matter when I post as long as I do. Today’s poem is once again from Crossroads Poetry. It originates from a point in my life when I was…

Today’s poem is a little bit of an odd one. I think it might be on the Sample Poems page that is lurking on this blog somewhere, but no matter, I may as well post it here as well. It’s from Crossroads Poetry, and it’s called ‘My Lady Reaper’. I first wrote this poem in about 2012, or rather, a poem that had a few things in common with this one. A handful of the lines were the same, but…

I’ve got a more cheerful poem for you today, I hope. That is to say, I think it’s more cheerful, but maybe you’ll disagree! If you’re wondering what’s going on, you probably missed my post yesterday explaining my plan to share a poem each day until Christmas, most of them from my first collection (Crossroads Poetry). tl;dr: I’m giving you a poem and a few thoughts about it, wahey. This poem’s called “Fireworks”, and as the title might suggest, it…

Content warning: references to self harm. Had I planned this a bit better, I would have started twelve days before Christmas and been able to fit the song a little better. Or possibly I would have gone for the twelve days after Christmas — I’m never sure which it’s supposed to be. But planning isn’t my strong point, as I only decided to do this a few minutes ago, so you’ll have to forgive me for that one. Next month…

So, I’ve never celebrated Hallowe’en, or indeed Samhain, or anything else associated with this time of year. But I’m aware of all the stories, all the symbolism, all the beliefs, and I’m pretty sure if you’re trying to get caught up with fairies, it’s a good time to be dancing around stone circles or something. It’s a time where the veils between worlds are at their thinnest, right? And I don’t know if you remember, but that’s a theme I…

It’s October! This means many things. It means Tumblr’s baffling obsession with Hallowe’en will intensify (as someone who never celebrated it as a kid, the appearance of pumpkins ALL OVER my dash is confusing every year). It means that it’s time to start preparing for NaNoWriMo, if you’re participating. It means I go to uni in four days, and isn’t that a terrifying thought? And it means that it’s release day for Broken Body Fragile Heart, so that’s what I’m…

I’ve been uploading my poetry collections to Nook (and also to Kobo, but that’s not what this post is about), and I have to say it hasn’t been an entirely smooth process. While Amazon allows you to upload a Word file and then basically does the formatting for you — with surprising accuracy — it’s definitely advisable to format an ePub file before trying to publish it. I’ve never really formatted e-books before, so this was a steep learning curve….

I remember reading an interview with Carol Ann Duffy in school last year where she said, “Sometimes when you write a poem, you don’t know if you’re ever going to write one again.” And I thought, “That’s ridiculous. I write poems practically every day.” My friends, I am a fool. I don’t believe in writer’s block. Okay, so some days it feels like pulling teeth, but I can still write. It might be rubbish, but if it’s a first draft,…